Robert and Mamie Eunson are Scots who have just landed in America, having been invited there by Mamie's uncle. They arrive in the tiny logging village of Eureka, Wisconsin only to be informed that the uncle has died when his cabin has been incinerated in a house fire. After starting out alone on the task of rebuilding, the Eunsons are assisted by the friendly locals - who show-up en masse - in reconstructing the house and Robert takes to tipping timber. Mamie is heavily pregnant upon their reaching Eureka; she delivers baby Robbie soon after the cabin is completed. Robert first works for a logging camp as a lumberjack. He eventually wins over Tom Cullen after winning an impromptu fist fight with the cruel Irish-American lumber-camp boss. Later Robert starts a successful boat building business and Mamie gives birth to five more children: Jimmy, Kirk, Annabelle, Elizabeth, and Jane. The Eunsons are prospering and happy until little Kirk is diagnosed with diphtheria. Mamie and Kirk are quarantined while Robert takes the other children away. The boy recovers, but the goodbye kiss Kirk gave his Dadda before his departure proves fatal, and Robert succumbs. Mamie takes to working as a seamstress and Robbie becomes the man of the house. Things stabilize, but only briefly: tired and work-worn, Mamie contracts typhoid. Knowing she will not survive, she charges Robbie, her eldest, with finding good homes for his siblings, with families that have children, so they will not be lonely. After Mamie's death, some of the townspeople wish to decide right away where the children should go. But Robbie and Jimmy ask for one more day, Christmas, together. The townspeople agree. But Robbie has a plan. He makes a list of families that would be appropriate, and, one by one, delivers his sisters to the homes he has chosen, realizing that they are unlikely to be turned down on Christmas. Jimmy takes Kirk to his new home. Stoic and resigned during the process, Robbie finally breaks down when he is alone and sees the tree outside the homestead where his father had carved the names of all of the children into the bark. Finally, Jimmy and Robbie say an unsaid good-bye to each other and their home. Baby Jane is the last to be handed over — Robbie stands at the door of a house and asks the woman who answers, "Please, ma'am, I was wondering if you'd care to have my sister." Then he bravely goes off alone to work at the logging camp.
